Tibet is a symbol of mystery and untouched
beauty with a unique landscape and undiluted culture that has
long fascinated people from around the world. With its sophisticated
Vajrayana traditions and primary emphasis on compassion,
Tibetan culture has been blessed with a spiritual expanse as
vast as the windswept passes and mountains of its terrain.

Tibetan music reflects the cultural heritage of the
trans-Himalayan region. First and foremost it is religious music,
reflecting the profound influence of Tibetan Buddhism.
Chanting, therefore is an essential element in the recitation
of sacred texts and celebration of various festivals.
It is sometime performed without metrical timing, accompanied
by resonant drums and low, sustained syllables.

The meditative and
spiritual content of Tibetan music is well known. Add to that
the beautiful snow clad mountains and the cool crisp air of
this high plateau. Further add to that the military occupation
of this beautiful land and the many inhabitants living in
exile while their culture is being systematically destroyed

Tahmeil:
Prelude Music
Al Darwaish: The Sufi Tannoura Dance
Fiqrpaiip: Break Music
The costume show of Tannoura Dance

The Mulawia sect of Egyptian Sufis, believe that the universe
stems from the same point of rotation. This philosophy is
translated directly into the rotational whirling of the
‘Darwaishes’ of this sect. The senior dancer (Lafife)
represents the sun and will start and end his whirling from
the same point. The junior dancers (Hanatia) represent the
stars and move around him in anticlockwise, concurrent circles
replicating the movement of the planets, echoing the 4 seasons
and the pilgrim’s movement around the Ka’ba. Once the senior
dancer stretches his right hand upward and his left downward
he establishes the connection between earth and sky, reaching
ecstasy he unties the belt around his waist in a symbolic
attempt to reach heaven. The entire ritual is based on
symbolism, the dancer departing from his ego and turning
towards truth and spiritual perfection.

The Didgeridoo
is a wind instrument developed by Indigenous Australians of
the Kakadu region of northern Australia about 1500 years ago.
It is described as a natural wooden trumpet and by
musicologists as an aerophone. The instrument is made from
Eucalyptus trees which have had their interiors hollowed out
by termites or died of other causes. A modern didgeridoo is
cylindrical or conical and about four feet long.

monday 8th march at 6.30 pm“Joyful
Gnosis” – overtone harmonic chant by David Hykes and the
Harmonic Choir

Harmonic singingis
a universal contemplative music practice based on the natural
harmonic presence found at the heart of all musical sound in the
universe as well as deep in the heart of our listening
consciousness. There are deep relationships between primordial and
sacred sound, listening awareness and the mind, meditation practice,
healing harmonization and well-being.

monday 8th march at 8.00 pm“Songs from an
itinerant Sufi” by Madan Gopal Singh

The term Sufi
music is paradoxically easy to recognize yet difficult to
define. It is obviously related to the philosophy of Islamic
Sufism yet sung by many who do not believe in Islam. It is the
bedrock of the music of cultures as diverse as those of
Turkey, the Middle East and Central Asia and the Indian
Subcontinent and Indonesia. In India it takes the form of the
Qawwali, The Ghazal or Kafi, where it is sung in Urdu, Hindi
or Punjabi. Musicians draw liberally from the rich and all
inclusive heritage of both Sufi and Bhakti poetry and music
that to attempt to categorize this intangible and unformalized
music is almost a disservice. Would it be too bold to say that
Sufi music has never been excusively about music? The most one
should attempt is to stress its main features “ Sufiana Kalaam”
(its mystical poetry, specially that of Rumi, Hafez, Faiz,
Bulleh Shah, Waris Shah and even Kabir). Its search for
spirituality through ecstasy and as Madan Gopal Singh himself
says “ Earlier it was driven by an etiquette of
spirituality and its concomitant rituals; today it is
monitored by the cultural industry as a fetish object on the
one hand and also espoused by radical cultural activists as a
poignant tool of resistance.”

tuesday 9th
march at 6.30 pmName of the play: Once Upon
A Time
– Manipuri Theatre directed by Kanhailal

This is a work-in-progress of research
theatre. In the continuity of retelling the tale the
performance is focused on the Ucheklangmeidong,
the Meitei folk tale of Langmeidong, the bird. It is a
tale of torture of a maiden by the step-mother leading to the
transformation of the maiden into a bird that flies away
fleeing from the claws of the torture.

Paradoxically, in the process of re-telling, the stream of
performance diverts to a therapeutic course of actions in
making the presence akong tattabi arai Kangdabi, the eternal feminine,(according to Meitei ancestral lore.)
It thus suggests how this presence wards off the evil
intentions of torturing the skin and spirit of woman by woman.

This may
well, may be a process of ‘provoking’ with its objective
impact, to create a perception in the spectator in between
experience and reflection. It is a way of justifying the
efficacy of art too through the sensory manifestation of the
sheer sound and movement, the specific powers of live theatre
that is conceived as ‘ethnic-neutral’.

Actors and
acting disappear, uncovering the over painted and illusory
layers of the psyche, to identify with the conjuror who
privileges the self over the character. Essentially this is
live theatre that rejects the legitimate theatre of academic
and intellectual exercise.

The
performance is drawn from ancient Meitei ritual, the Shamanic
tradition of Manipur.

tuesday 9th march at
8.00 pm‘PEOPLE OF THE
PACIFIC- An Ancestral Musical Journey through Polynesia’ by
The Kahurangi Maori Dance Theatre of New Zealand

Though the Maori people of New Zealand are often referred
to as Polynesians, their relative isolation from the main
Pacific Island groups has given them a somewhat distinctive
musical culture. Their traditional performance, a fusion of
song and dance, is known as kapahaka.( ‘kapa’- Row, ‘haka’-
Maori Dance)

The Kahurangi Maori Dance Theatre have chosen to present this
evening the mythological story of the voyage of their
ancestors on the ‘Takitimu Canoe’ through Polynesia to New
Zealand including Tahiti, Hawaii, Samoa, and finally departing
Rarotonga ( the Cook Islands) with the great migration of
seven canoes to New Zealand. Their programme will include
traditional dances from all the countries they passed through.

The most famous Maori dance the ‘Haka’ was originally
performed by warriors before a battle. This intimidating
warlike routine has been adopted by the ‘All Blacks’ the New
Zealand Rugby team before commencing a game. (not always
successfully)